Towards a European strategy on e-Justice

The Commission has adopted today a Communication to
the European Parliament, Council and the EESC presenting ideas for the use of
Information Society tools in the field of justice. The Communication deals with
current and future initiatives which will help promote the European Justice
Area.

"European citizens and businesses advocate better justice systems across
Europe, which are capable of delivering better results in a more efficient way.
The Commission believes that e-Justice can provide effective tools to make
justice easier to access, speedier and less costly", declared Vice-president
Jacques Barrot, Commissioner responsible for Justice Freedom and Security.
"Judges, prosecutors and legal practitioners are also more and more vocal in
demanding more effective judicial co-operation within the EU. This is also
essential in order to provide adequate responses to cross-border crime.
e-Justice can contribute to this aim too", he added.

For several years, initiatives in the field of e-Justice have been initiated
at national level or thanks to the co-operation between some governments. With
this Communication, the Commission draws up an inventory of the existing
projects and proposes coordinated action at EU level for the future, to avoid
risks of diverging technical solutions.

The objectives of e-Justice, which encompass both criminal and civil justice,
are broadly the following:

1. The creation of a European portal designed to facilitate access
to justice by citizens and businesses across Europe. It will include
relevant and updated information on the rights of defendants and victims
in criminal proceedings and on the remedies available before the courts of
another Member State in the event of cross-border disputes. To make it possible
to exercise those rights in practice, the portal will also provide guidance to
find the competent court or tribunal in the relevant country. Furthermore, the
portal may allow access to certain on-line procedures, already foreseen in
existing EU regulations, such as debt recovery action for small claims.

2. The reinforcement of judicial co-operation, on the basis of
existing legal instruments. An area of major concern to the Commission will be
the interconnection of Criminal Record Databases. This ongoing project allows
judges and enforcement agencies across the EU to take account of defendants'
past criminal convictions. The Commission also considers other actions,
concerning exchanges of information between legal practitioners (for which a
specially secured network will have to be devised), enhanced recourse to
videoconference (so far, little used in cross-border proceedings) and innovative
translation tools, such as automatic translation, dynamic forms and a European
databases of legal translators and interpreters.

The e-Justice strategy, largely underpinned by the 2006-2010 e-Commission
strategy[1], will represent a
major challenge for the Commission in the coming years. Important human and
financial resources will be mobilised in this exercise.